


Like Tomorrow Won't Arrive

by MonPetitParselmouth



Series: Endless Cycle of Vengeance [6]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Fire, Gen, Global Warming, Identity Reveal, Museums, Parkour, and a little angsty at times, back to real tags, but I'm getting ahead of myself now, honestly I rushed a couple other relationships so dolley/maria is gonna be slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-22 22:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14318289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonPetitParselmouth/pseuds/MonPetitParselmouth
Summary: Theo sighed—did she really sigh that much?—as she incredulously stared at the attacked museum and consequential super battle. The entire sprawling building was in flames.Great. Just . . . great.(Or, a look at a typical Monday morning, feat. Thomas burning up a museum to piss Alex off, global warming, and Laf taking a trip to the Arctic.)





	Like Tomorrow Won't Arrive

_Chat: how is this even our lives (aka trying to keep the city from getting blown up)_

 

Archangel: @lady liberty get ur lazy butt over to the metropolitan museum of art

 

lady liberty: ??????????

 

bluephoenix: there’s a battle going on and our dad is making us go clothes shopping so we can’t help

 

lady liberty: where’s alex

 

Archangel: where do you think alex is?

 

lady liberty: I’m going to take a wild guess and say that he's the cause of the whole issue

 

bluephoenix: you’re half right

 

Archangel: don't bother about the details, just gooooooooooo

 

lady liberty: k, I’m omw

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

Theo raced through the city like a speeding bullet in her silver superhero costume, dashing across the tops of buildings and pretending that she couldn’t see all the civilians gaping at her. _Focus_ , she told herself. _Tense your muscles, relax them as you begin to fall, absorb the impact and bend your knees. Stride from chimney to shingle to stoplight._

_Like Laf taught you._

Theo could already hear the distant sounds of a super battle ricocheting through the streets. The clang of a walking cane on something hollow and metal, spat-out slurs, the tell-tale scent of smoke. . . definitely Alex and the Arsonist. 

Angelica hadn’t bothered to include any informative details in her text-plea for help, so Theo had to figure out what was going on by herself. 

Sometimes she really hated her job. 

(Well, Theo wasn’t paid, so . . . hobby? Pastime? Extracurricular activity?)

Was that Cataclysm’s voice? She sped up a little, the flimsy, makeshift builder’s canopy whose beams she was sprinting across creaking a little. Puffs of wood dust were stirred up in the air with every step she took, and her quiver of arrows rattled joltily against her spine. 

She leaped off the dark green canopy and landed a little unsteadily on the sidewalk across the street from the massive art museum. 

Theo sighed—did she really sigh that much?—as she incredulously stared at the attacked museum and consequential super battle. The entire sprawling building was in flames. 

_Great. Just . . . great._

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

Dorothea Payne @Dolley_Payne

No sign of @OfficialHeroWatch at #MetropolitanMuseum battle, so here I am, doing my duty to the people

[ _Picture attached_ ]

 

Dorothea Payne @Dolley_Payne

@OfficialHeroWatch help meeeeee!

 

James Madison @OfficialHeroWatch

@Dolley_Payne You realize that it’s live on the news, right?

 

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

_You texted Madison on Monday at 9:03 am_

 

Dolley: you absolute prat

 

Madison: love u too Dolley <3

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

Adrienne rested her chin on her hand, looking at James. He was intently watching the super fight—Icarus and Lady Liberty versus Cataclysm and the Arsonist—currently airing on live news with something resembling. . . anxiety written all over his face. No, not anxiety, _worry_. _What is he worried about?_ she wondered. 

Or was that _who_? she realized with a start, when James flinched as an illusion of an enormous spinning blade got just a little too close to the Arsonist. She grew even more suspicious when he cringed as a sharp-looking tree branch whipped across Cataclysm’s face but didn’t react at all when the same branch whacked into Icarus, making him stagger back.

_Strange._

She didn’t say anything. Adrienne wasn’t the kind of person that snooped into other people’s business. 

Unless, y’know, the situation called for snooping. Then she was all for it. 

She watched as the Arsonist disappeared from the screen, leaving Cataclysm to hurl a last . . . _whatever that metal thing may be_ at Icarus and then dart away into the shadows, too. An odd thump sounded above them in what she knew to be James’ bedroom as the purple-clad figure vanished, but she didn’t think anything of it. 

James, for some reason, exhaled in relief. Adrienne gently pried his fingers off of the remote control and switched the television off. 

Barely half a minute later, Thomas Jefferson waltzed into the room, his trademark sly smile on full blast. 

This wasn’t new. 

So why did Adrienne feel like something was. . . off? 

“Hi, Jemmy!” Thomas sang, pecking James on the cheek. He bounced over to perch on the armchair farthest from Adrienne, dumping a paper bag onto the tiled floor. Adrienne caught a glimpse of something that looked like maybe ripped pink lycra inside, along with a flash of something long, like maybe a cane or a staff, but she couldn’t tell exactly what they were. 

James just kind of waved at him long-sufferingly.

Adrienne took a moment to look at Thomas; something didn't feel right. His normally perfect hair was slightly disheveled, but that didn’t mean anything. Maybe it was the fact that he had gotten here so quickly, with so little notice. . . yet he’d done that before. There was a smear of what looked like soot on his forehead, but James had told Adrienne that his aunt was a chemist and he hung out in the lab while she did experiments and was witness to a lot of explosions. 

Okay. She could accept that theory. 

Still, her wariness was mounting, and it reached its peak when Maria Lewis banged open the door, too, jet-black stilettos that Adrienne had never seen her wear before but were oddly familiar stabbing at the floor. Her normally sharp and flawless scarlet eyeliner was smudged and her hair was mussed like Thomas’, but that wasn’t what made Adrienne gape. It was the gash on Maria’s face. 

It was all Adrienne could do not to stare. A shallow but jagged wound slashed its way down the girl’s cheek, starting below her left eyebrow and reaching all the way to her jawline like a morbid bolt of lightning. Droplets of blood were spattered around the injury, the ruby beads quivering like teardrops trembling on the tip of an eyelash. 

“Are you all right?” Adrienne breathed. A thousand thoughts and speculations swirled in her brain like tiny glass beads scattering on the floor, a puzzle with all the pieces but a few slotted into place. What was she missing?

Maria flopped down on the couch, slamming the door behind her. “I’m fine,” she said, a rather unholy expression somewhere between grim and devil-may-care plastered across her torn-up face. 

“That’ll scar,” said Thomas sympathetically. He acted like he wasn’t even surprised to see his friend with a wound that probably needed stitches show up randomly at his boyfriend’s doorstep, a minute after he had, so spontaneously. James didn’t look all that shocked either, although he was wearing a sort of stunned, horrified grimace at the bloodied injury. 

Maria didn’t respond, other than to mutter, “I know.” She ran her fingers over the cut, barely even wincing, with no visible pain, merely a vaguely interested look. They came away stained with red, such that Adrienne had to suppress a wince herself. 

Adrienne glanced down at the remote in her hands, then back at Maria. She couldn’t help but emit a tiny squeak; the wound had knitted closed, and Maria’s face was screwed up in concentration. It was rather messily done, like the skin and sinew been muscled back together by some supernatural force. Only a thin white line remained, eerily pale against Maria’s bronze skin, oozing driblets like tiny garnets. 

“H—how?” Adrienne stuttered, and then something clicked. The remote control clattered to the floor.

Maria opened one topaz eye. “You didn’t tell her?” The question was directed toward Thomas, but Maria was looking at Adrienne. 

“I was going to let James,” Thomas muttered. 

“You’re . . . Cataclysm,” Adrienne stated dumbly. “Cataclysm and the Arsonist.”

Maria nodded silently, something akin to apprehension on her face. 

"But that doesn't—but that—wait." She spluttered on her own spit for a few agonizing seconds, then held up her index finger for about forty seconds before opening her eyes again. "How?" she asked weakly, but didn't wait for an answer before launching into her next question. “And that’s why—that’s why you both came right as the battle ended—how did you change so quickly?” she asked Maria. With Thomas, well, it was better not to question Thomas’ ways. 

Maria shrugged one shoulder off of the leather jacket she was wearing, revealing the black supersuit with a vermilion stripe along one side underneath. She pulled a charcoal hood from under the jacket’s collar back up over her dark curls. “I didn’t.”

“ _Mon dieu_ ,” Adrienne whispered to herself for what was probably the eight hundredth time since she’d moved to New York City. 

“You don’t. . . mind?” asked Thomas, brow furrowed. 

Adrienne leveled him with a look. “Not really.”

She heard Maria curse quietly and show Thomas her phone screen. Thomas jumped up, both of them staring out the window. 

“Icarus is patrolling the streets around here, apparently,” said Thomas by way of explanation. “Sorry, but there’s that huge bay window in here and we could get spotted and figured out. . .”

“Text Dolley and ask if you can crash at her place for now,” James suggested. 

Maria nodded, already clicking away at her phone. “Yeah, I’ll do that.” 

They were gone in a matter of seconds. 

“So,” said James after a minute of awkward silence, “you’re taking this really well. I almost blacked out when I figured it out.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Adrienne told him cheerfully. “The shock will set in soon.”

To her credit, she didn’t faint. 

Not _exactly_.

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

_Maria(h) texted you on Monday at 9:22 am_

 

Maria(h): Dolley Payne, you are a wonderful human being who deserves more than what life had cruelly thrown at you!

 

Dolley: Wth maria spill, what’s wrong

 

Maria(h): … can thomas and I come over to your place

 

Dolley: ok what did you do

 

Maria(h): nothing!

 

Maria(h): icarus is on patrol and we need somewhere to hide out after that battle you saw since Thomas' aunt is working from home today so we can’t go to her place

 

Maria(h): and Adrienne’s in the know now

 

Dolley: so it’s complicated?

 

Maria(h): yes

 

Maria(h): now might we come over? or must I threaten you into submission?

 

Mariah(h): I’m dead serious, we need to hide

 

Dolley: what, are you wanted or something

 

Maria(h): actually

 

Maria(h): yes 

 

Dolley: …

 

Dolley: I don’t know how to respond to that????

 

Dolley: because you’ve never actually done anything to merit that??? Never, like, smuggled poison or killed someone or anything???

 

Maria(h): as far as u know

 

 Dolley: i’m legitimately scared of you right now

 

Maria(h): omg really??? thx!

 

Maria(h): the Lewis legacy is secure

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

Dolley had no idea when this sort of thing had become the norm for her. Three-fourths of New York City’s supervillains were sitting in her kitchen, and she hadn’t even blinked at it. 

Now that she thought about it, that was quite worrisome, actually. 

Maria was in complete villain regalia, albeit she’d taken off her creepy red mask, and flecks of dried blood graced her newly scarred face (Dolley was afraid to ask what the hell they’d been doing). Thomas and Laf were in civilian clothing, but the casual effect was ruined by the fact that Laf wouldn’t stop experimentally freezing water particles in the air, forming weirdly shaped mini ice sculptures, and giggling to himself about it. 

Thomas was complaining loudly about his superhero counterpart over the phone. “I don’t understand how Icarus won’t acknowledge that I’m right. We had made a _promise_. Signed a _treaty_. During our war, we needed money and guns and half a chance. And who provided those funds?”

There was an inaudible, crackling response from whoever he was talking to, probably James. 

“ _Exactly_! See? He’s so—so naive!” Thomas whined. Maria draped herself over the kitchen counter that she was leaning on, a gleam in her eye, as Thomas continued to complain. Dolley glanced at her, caught her gaze, and quickly glanced away again. 

No way was she blushing. No _way_. 

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

“I swear, that man has no idea what he’s talking about,” raged Alex, sitting next to his boyfriend on a park bench. “How was the US supposed to help France in their revolution?”

“No idea, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me exactly why not,” John replied with an amused eyebrow raised. It was moments like these that he loved the most, moments when Alex’s voice would wash over him and fill in all the cracks that life had left in him. It was intoxicating, really, to watch Alex get so fired up and passionate. John lived for those times.

“There was nothing we could do,” Alex continued, a familiar, steely expression on his determined features. “And furthermore, the treaty we had signed was null-and-void. The king was _already dead_. His head was in a basket, for God’s sake. What were we supposed to do, take it out and ask it is we should honor the treaty? He is such an _idiot_. It’s insufferable.”

“Ahem,” cut in a placid voice. Both Alex and John whipped around to face the speaker; it was Alex’s. . . uh, _friend_ , Aaron Burr, leaning against a tree next to their bench. John had to stop himself from grimacing at the interruption; the smoldering, enthusiastic glint in Alex’s eyes had died. Their moment was over. 

“I hate to interrupt,” said Aaron blandly, although from the look on his face, the opposite wasn’t really a stretch, “but do you mean the Arsonist?”

“Oh—um—” started John. 

Alex cleared his throat, throwing John a meaningful glance. “No, actually,” he said. “One of John’s. . . cousins.”

“I see,” said Aaron coolly, looking unimpressed. 

John tried not to shiver. 

 

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

Alex Hamilton @uphillclimb

And furthermore, if we continue to ignore this growing threat to our very planet, every species we know of is liable to be wiped out as the climate grows warmer. . . (11/64)

 

»»-------------¤-------------«« 

 

 

_You texted Lafayette on Monday at 5:32 pm_

 

ThomasJ: no way

 

Lafayette: s'il vous plaît, thomas?

 

ThomasJ: i do not have time to take you to the arctic

 

ThomasJ: and why do u want to go there anyway

 

Lafayette: global warming

 

Lafayette: it is a real issue, you know

 

ThomasJ: i refuse to believe that you want to refreeze glaciers and save humanity 

purely out of the goodness of ur heart

 

Lafayette: but Alexander has been on twitter about this

 

Lafayette: see?

 

Lafayette: i cannot simply let him outdo us in this way

 

Lafayette: and you can teleport, it will only take a few minutes

 

ThomasJ: . . . 

 

ThomasJ: FINE I’LL TAKE YOU TO THE DAMN ARCTIC

 

ThomasJ: BUT YOU OWE ME BIG TIME LAF

 

Lafayette: <3 <3 <3

 

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to wait a little longer for the reveal, but Adrienne is too smart to be left in the dark for too long.
> 
> (In other news, there will be two weeks until my next post instead of just one. Just a heads-up.)


End file.
